can kanban columns have doing and done?

[Spencer Offenbacker]

I've worked with other kanban boards in different software apps. I've been able to add 'doing' and 'done' within each column, but can't do this in Jira. Is there a way to split columns in Jira kanban boards?

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Spencer - Welcome the the Atlassian Community!

There is a new app in the Atlassian Marketplace that can do this. It is the only one I know of.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1224493/easykad-kanban-boards?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks for that suggestion, John!

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Spencer Offenbacker -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

No, and yes-ish...

No: there is no built-in Jira feature to visualize this very common way of showing items on a Kanban board.

Yes-ish: one work-around is to create different status values for each, such as Build, Doing and Build, Done.  One advantage of this for Jira is to better see the work/wait time...even though the reporting is not great at helping with that.  One disadvantage is WIP limits cannot be shared across board columns to manage WIP effectively.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Spencer Offenbacker]

Thanks, I figured so. Why would Atlassian not have this feature? it is a core practice in kanban, signaling!! Microsoft ADO does this, so do other kanban apps.

[Bill Sheboy]

Good question, Spencer.  Probably a design choice for simple-over-complex implementation.  As John noted, there are marketplace addons to close some gaps.  Other questions/challenges for Kanban features are:

• Why is the "control chart" not an actual control chart?
• Why is the "CFD" not an actual CFD?
• Why aren't basic Kanban measures supported out-of-the-box?
• Why isn't there an option to enforce conservation of flow?  Of WIP limits?
• Where are the WIP measurement reports and gadgets?
• Where are the abilities to set WIP by other aspects: work item type (e.g. component), etc.
• Where is the ability to show/hide (collapse) columns on longer board processes?
• ...

I believe Jira started as an issue management product, and so things like Kanban support were added later, and so they continue to evolve/improve over time.

[Spencer Offenbacker]

Agree. How do we get these types of questions/features on Atlassian's backlog?

[Bill Sheboy]

Here are the open suggestions and defects on the public board, which you may add to.  Some of the questions I noted above are already open suggestions:

https://jira.atlassian.com/issues/?jql=project%20IN%20(JRACLOUD%2C%20JSWCLOUD)%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Unresolved%20AND%20summary%20~%20%22kanban%22%20ORDER%20BY%20Key%20DESC